Found this today. J.K. Rowling before she even finished the third book. Oh the memories!
I sure hope some of you have seen this already, but this is the trailer for The Artist. It’s a film I’m becoming more and more interested in daily. The film was a big hit at Cannes where its star Jean Dujardin won Best Actor. Quite impressively it’s a silent film about the silent era just before sound. Though I won’t have the chance to see it until November when it’s released, from what I gather it’s about two actors one famous and the other an extra basically switching places (not like in The Change-Up) and what that means for their relationship. The main stars are French actors, but the supporting cast includes John Goodman and James Cromwell and … Missi Pyle, haha. We all lament seeing the silent films in class so I’m curious to see how such a film will hit with audiences today.
Honestly, he’s completely correct. I’ve felt this way a lot, for quite some time. We all are aware we live in an age of “immediate gratification”. We want whatever it is that is out there that we want, and we want it five minutes ago. I don’t see a problem with necessarily wanting things quickly, and, I mean, for things to of course work as advertised, but I do see there to be a problem when we first of all let it bring us down or ruin things for us in any way, and then bring other people down. The point he makes at the end about an audience in Baghdad vs. Madison Sq. Garden is poignant. I can think of many people I’m close to who would participate in the lampooning of the show-handlers if there was any little hiccup in the actual performance due to, oh I don’t know, something as random as a storm cutting power to the building (something that probably couldn’t happen because Madison Sq. Garden would have backup generators to guard against such events). To me, we fail too often to enjoy the marvels that have been brought to us in our years, and are too quick to judge. Of course, I can’t really claim to be immune to any of this though. For I too, want what I want to have been done five minutes ago.
Luc Besson directs Michelle Yeoh in The Lady. I don’t think you’ll find someone who doesn’t find the story of Burmese pro-democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi fascinating and powerful, and watching this trailer is the same. There’s very very little as far as content, but oh so very much emotion. Here’s to hoping that Yeoh gets so overdue recognition for her portrayal.
“One question that all fact checkers have to grapple with is what counts as fact. When I interviewed Brooks Jackson of Factcheck.org, I asked him about how they decided to weigh in on the impacts of the stimulus bill, a tremendously complicated issue. How do you decide what sort of facts to check? Are some issues too complicated to take on?
We generally look for controversial claims about important public issues, and try to fact-check influential newsmakers from across the political spectrum. We focus on “statements of fact” that can be verified with the right amount of research, ideally with clear-cut answers — so the community does not get bogged down in tasks that cannot be completed effectively. That said, we have on occasion taken on some difficult challenges, such as this claim from Sen. Richard Durbin, who stated that “Social Security does not add one penny to the deficit.” The wide difference between legal and economic interpretations of this politically-charged issue was a major source of disagreement for our community — and it has polarized Americans across party lines, with Democrats claiming that Social Security has no impact on the deficit, and Republicans claiming the opposite. Our editors were divided on this issue as well and took turns arguing for different perspectives before agreeing to a final verdict. After several days of extensive research, we concluded that Durbin’s statement did not account for the economic interpretation of Social Security’s actual costs on a cash basis, and dismissed the significant impact of the “payroll tax holiday.” For these reasons, we found it “half true.” This was also the first time that the verdict from our editors had diverged so widely from other NewsTrust members (over two-thirds of participants thought Senator Durbin’s claim was true). We attribute this discrepancy to the charged political climate, the large number of liberals on our site, as well as the complexity of the issue, which is subject to interpretation and requires a long time to research thoroughly. But despite the complexity of this task, we found this particular investigation to be a very rewarding experience for our team and community. We collectively learned a lot more about Social Security and its impact on the U.S. budget, as well as how different interpretations can lead to diverging conclusions. Perhaps the most important insight from this experiment is that reality is nuanced and comes in many shades of gray, despite our instinctive desire for black-and-white answers that match our beliefs. At the same time, we have also discovered that when people of goodwill come together with a shared focus on facts and some professional guidance, they can shed light on the most complex issues and learn a great deal from each other.”
It’s a mistake to enshrine individual liberty without acknowledging the role that a good government plays in preserving and promoting it. Look at places like Haiti, Somalia, and the Congo to see what happens when governments aren’t around much.
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Kathleen Kennedy Townsend in the Atlantic Article I just posted. I thought this was a very important point she made as well. |
“In the 19th century, the Rockefellers, Carnegies, Fricks, and J.P. Morgans wanted America to do well because their own fortunes were tied to American prosperity. They made America a great economic power by creating jobs and technological advances right here at home. They knew that their own fortunes were bound up with the well-being of their fellow Americans.
In Ayn Rand’s America, the first obligation of CEOs is to their shareholders, not to citizens. Their business is global, not local. Why should they care if they send jobs overseas? Why should they be concerned if American kids can’t do math or write a sentence? They’ll just outsource the work. Why should they worry that the next generation of Americans is going to have a tough time? Their own kids will do just fine. And in the meantime, they’re doing just fine themselves.” -By Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Former Lt. Gov. of Maryland
